How to Merge Logical Drive with Primary Partition in Windows 7, 8, 10?

What is logical drive and primary partition?

Before learning how to merge logical drive with primary partition, it is necessary to know what is logical drive and primary partition. What’s their exact feature and difference? As known to users, a brand new hard disk cannot be used for data storage until it is divided inyto 1 or more chunks that we call hard disk partitions. There are 3 types of partitions, namely primary partition, extended partition and logical drive. Their bar comes with different color in Windows built-in Disk Management (see the picture below).

Primary partition is the very hard disk partition that can be used to install Windows operating system, and you can set only one primary partition active to boot OS. On a MBR-based hard drive, you can only create 4 primary partitions or 3 primary partitions plus 1 extended partition at most. When you delete a primary partition, you will get unallocated space.

The logical drive is the volume that locates inside the extended partition, which will be useful when you need more than 4 partitions on a MBR disk. But the extended partition cannot be used to save data directly unless you divide it into logicala drives. In a word, a hard disk can contain only 1 extended partitions, but you can create many logical drives inside this type of partition. Besides, the logical drive cannot be used to install OS. When you delete a logical drive, you will get free space rather than unallocated space.

“Can I merge logical drive with primary partition?”

“Hi everyone, I need some help. I installed Windows 10 on the C root drive and I'm trying to merge the logical drive which is 90GB into C primary partition so as to make bigger. I tried doing it during installation, after installation and I tried Disk Management. Delete the logical drive and it became ‘free space’, but the “Extend Volume” greyed out on C drive. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.”

How to successfully merge logical drive with primary partition via Disk Management?

In the above user case, we know even when users delete the logical drive and get free space that is adjacent to C drive, it is still not possible to add the space into C drive via the “Extend Volume” function. That’s because the free space is different from the unallocated space. The free space is generated from logical drive while unallocated space is generated from primary partition. In Disk Management, to extend a primary partition, we need a contiguous unallocated space in its right side while the adjacent free space is required to extend a logical drive. 

So, to merge logical drive into primary partition, it is necessary to delete all logical drives and then extended partition to make unallocated space. Below are specific steps you can follow:

☞Note: please back up important files before deleting any drives.

Step 1. Open Disk Management, right-click the logical drive and select "Delete Volume". 

Step 2. Then you will see the logical drive has become free space, and combined into other existing free space in the extended partition. Now we need to right-click the whole free space and choose "Delete Partition" to delete the extended partition.

Step 3. Now the free space becomes unallocated space, which can be used to extend the adjacent primary partition.

Step 4. Right-click the primary partition and select "Extend Volume". Then follow the prompts to merge logical drive and primary partition.

Freeware to directly merge logical drive with primary partition in Windows 7/8/10

To combine logical drive with primary partition more easily, we recommend you using the free partition manager called AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Its “Merge Partitions” function can directly merge two adjacent partitions without losing data, and merge unallocated space or free space into another partition no matter whether they are adjacent or not. So if the target logical drive and the primary partition are neighboring, this feature is a great choice. 

Supposed the logical drive and primary partition are adjacent.

Step 1. Download, install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. Right-click the primary parition and select "Advanced"> “Merge Partitions”.

Step 2. Here tick the adjacent logical drive and click on “OK”.

Step 3. Back to the main interface, click on “Apply” and “Proceed” to commit the pending operation.

If the logical drive and primary partition are not adjacent and there is free space in the middle, you can move the free space to the right side of the logical drive via the “Move Partition” feature, to make them adjacent and then combine those two partitions.

Summary

Now, you can choose the most proper way to merge logical drive with primary partiton in Windows 7, 8, 10 according to your actual situation. Besides the above feature, the free AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is also able to clone partition, check partition for errors, clone hard disk, transfer OS to SSD, set active partition, etc. If you want to experience more advanced features, like split partition, manage dynamic disk/partition, quick partition hard drive, convert logical drive to primary partition without losing data, please upgrade to Professional edition.